Kenneth R. Conklin -- Scholarly publications and teaching positions from 1962 through 1992, and description of some life experiences which influenced the growth of the spiritual and philosophical viewpoint running through his work

ORDER OF TOPICS

A. HOW SOME LIFE EXPERIENCES INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY SPIRITUALITY AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS AS SEEN IN MY PUBLICATIONS

B. LIST OF 43 SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS FROM 1966 THROUGH 1985 WITH LINK TO A WEBPAGE WHERE MANY OF THEM ARE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

C. DESCRIPTIONS OF MY WORK AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER FROM 1962 THROUGH 1992

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A. HOW SOME LIFE EXPERIENCES INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY SPIRITUALITY AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS AS SEEN IN MY PUBLICATIONS

Many of my publications are conceptually linked in the way they exhibit some underlying themes in my personal philosophy and scholarly interests.

From ages 7-11, while growing up in Chicago in a one-bedroom apartment near the corner of Irving Park and Pulaski, I was required by my parents to walk a few blocks to attend Sunday School every week at an Evangelical Lutheran church where my parents were members but rarely attended. Thus I began learning about religion and was made to feel it is important, but that I must pursue it on my own.

During grade 6 my parents and I moved to a small house in the Chicago suburb Niles, one block from the corner where Chicago, Niles, and Park Ridge all come together. During 7th and 8th grades I was required by my parents to attend Saturday morning classes at an Evangelical Lutheran church in Park Ridge which my parents seldom attended, riding my bicycle about a mile each way on icy streets in the Winters. The classes aroused a strong interest in theological topics, while my parents' insistence that I attend but without their help developed my spirit of self-reliance and independence. At the end of the two year period of indoctrination I and the other students were required to participate in a "confirmation" ceremony which included reciting the Nicene Creed as a pledge of belief in the church doctrines ("I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord ..."). I told my parents that after deep thought throughout the two year program I had come to the conclusion that I did not believe in the church doctrines and I did not want to participate in the ceremony. But my parents insisted I must do so despite my strong objections, partly because all four grandparents and some friends of the family had already been invited and it was a matter of family honor. I obeyed, but felt deeply offended and wounded by being forced to endure the hypocrisy of making a public pledge of faith in a theology I did not truly believe in.

In junior high and high school I was an extremely diligent student, consistently earning top grades in all subjects. My interest in philosophy had initially been aroused by the two years of Saturday morning confirmation classes. But in high school that interest was deepened when I read Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," and especially William Wordsworth's "Ode to Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood." At the same time my maternal grandfather had given me a record player, and I began listening repeatedly, with ever-deeper appreciation, to Handel's "Messiah" and to short pieces by Bach, especially "Air for G String", "Zion Hoert die Waechter Singen" and others. Following one such listening session, while alone at home, a session with Bach followed by intense meditation led to my first mystical experience.

I began reading books on religion, and was especially attracted to Buddhism in general and "Pure Land" Buddhism in particular, with special attention to Zen. In a 12th grade advanced-placement English class I read portions of Plato's Republic, which seemed exactly to describe my own metaphysical beliefs; and then continued outside of class with Plato's dialogs "Meno" (which focuses on a demonstration of how teachers teach as a way of showing that students are already born with Truth inside them) and "Phaedrus" (the nature of love and of its divine origin). I also read "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse, and then Hesse's Nobel Prize-winning novel "Magister Ludi" (The Glass bead Game). The Hesse novels seemed to describe my own spiritual journey. "Magister Ludi" aroused my awareness that all the academic disciplines are conceptually interwoven, and that they are a framework for spiritual insight that transforms a person's soul and motivates him to pursue wisdom, compassion, and moral righteousness (as Plato had also written about).

Because of a large amount of advanced-placement credit from high school courses, and large course overloads in college, I completed my B.S. degree in Mathematics at the University of Illinois in only two years (Honors in Liberal Arts with Distinction in Mathematics, Phi Beta Kappa, Bronze Tablet Scholar, and other honor societies). But I also had the equivalent of a bachelors degree in Philosophy. I entered graduate school in Mathematics at the University of Illinois while still only 19 years old. To earn free tuition and a small income, I had a job as part-time lecturer in Mathematics with sole authority over a 3-credit freshman math class, responsible for organizing lessons, creating tests, and giving grades. I began thinking so hard about how to teach effectively that I lost interest in Mathematics and began once again to focus on Philosophy as a way to analyze my performance as a teacher, including epistemological issues involved in the act of teaching and moral issues involved in exercising authority over my students. I switched majors to the study of Philosophy and the philosophical/social/historical foundations of education, earned a Ph.D. in that field in 1967 at age 24, and built a career in it. I spent a total of 13 years teaching college: 5 years as graduate teaching fellow in Mathematics and then in Philosophy of Education at University of Illinois; 3 years as Assistant Professor at Oakland University (branch of Michigan State), 2 years as Assistant Professor at Emory University (Atlanta), and 3 years as Associate Professor at Boston University. I also was visiting lecturer in Philosophy of Education during summer sessions at University of Michigan and University of Illinois. Later, when my academic field suffered a major shrinkage nationwide resulting from both an economic downturn and a change in priorities in teacher education, I became a teacher of Mathematics in a high school in a Boston suburb.

I fell in love and married a woman with a B.A. in studio art and an M.A. in Art History, who became a teacher of art and later a creator of her own artwork with a flourishing business selling it. On numerous summer-long trips to Europe (as well as camping trips throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Guatemala) we visited countless cathedrals and art museums both to drink in the spirituality of the medieval period and to appreciate the art and architecture. We also took hundreds of tours of automobile plants, steel mills, factories, wineries, farms, etc.

With all this as a background, it comes as no surprise that my scholarly publications, and the university courses I taught, exhibit some consistent themes. One such theme is religious mysticism characterized by Plato's theory of the Forms, St Augustine's theology as seen in the mysticism of 20th Century theologians Jacques Maritain and Teilhard de Chardin, Pure-Land Buddhism and Zen, etc. Thus many of my publications about education and teaching deal with epistemology (theories about where knowledge comes from) with an orientation toward the existence of Absolute Truth, a belief in the concept of ineffability (truth cannot be adequately or accurately told), and a focus on how truth can be expressed and how a teacher can help students discover it despite its ineffability. Another theme running through many of my publications is the analysis of aesthetic expression -- especially the ideas that teaching is a performance which can be analyzed aesthetically; that mathematics and other abstract disciplines have an indispensable aesthetic component in which logical rigor is a work of art where concepts are displayed in patterns which facilitate a student's discovery; and that proper organization of lessons as aesthetic performances can help students assemble separate elements into a coherent gestalt of comprehension. During my time with rank of Associate Professor of Philosophy and Teacher Education at Boston University, I taught an undergraduate course by invitation of the School for the Arts specifically designed for future teachers of art, music, and theatre; and I taught a graduate course in the School of Education for experienced teachers and school administrators, whose title was "Creativity."

During the early 1970s, as the Viet Nam war was winding down and the U.S. economy entered a steep recession, the focus in teacher education shifted toward supervised internships and away from courses in educational theory. At Boston University my department of Foundations of Education shrank from 20 professors the year before I arrived down to 4 professors the year after I left. Among the non-tenured faculty I had the highest rank and salary, and was therefore among the professors whose contracts were not renewed. I searched nationwide but the few positions available were for beginning assistant professors, and were at universities many hundreds of miles away. My wife had a good job as a high school Art teacher. We decided to stay, and I found a job as a high school mathematics teacher. As the years went by it became clear that my career as a university professor had ended. I shifted away from writing scholarly articles and devoted all my energies to my work as a mathematics teacher and to learning Pascal language for computer programming in order to teach that subject at the high school. I also served as chairman of the "Philosophy of Education" committee for my school's decennial reaccreditation project, and published a few articles about some practical topics in the teaching of Mathematics and the role of Philosophy in the daily life of a teacher.

In 1992, when my wife and I had both accumulated enough years as public school teachers to be eligible for pensions, we "retired" and moved to Hawaii where I immersed myself in studying Hawaiian history, language, and culture. During the years since then my area of greatest expertise and most intense commitment of time and moral concern has become Hawaiian sovereignty. I am far more knowledgeable about Hawaiian sovereignty than I ever was about Philosophy, Mathematics, and educational theory. I have a huge website, have published hundreds of major essays and small letters to editor, and a book. Although naturally disposed toward quietude and a life of meditation and research, I stepped into the public arena to become politically active on the sovereignty issue. But that's an entirely different topic.

Below is a list of 43 of my scholarly publications from 1966 to 1985 in the fields of Philosophy, Education, and Mathematics. All were written with pen and paper, and then typed on a manual typewriter, before computers became widely available. The original and several carbon copies of an article were sent through the mail to a journal editor. If the editor liked the essay, he either approved it for publication or mailed the carbon copies to professors on the editorial board to get approval to publish. All were published in scholarly journals before there was an internet. Anyone doing research later would have to discover an article's existence by looking in the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature in a library, or perhaps by seeing a footnote referring to it in some more recent article. To read an article it was necessary to travel to a library which housed the journal in its archives. Early in my career the only practical way to copy an article or excerpt was by hand, but toward the end photocopy machines gradually became available. Some of the articles below can now be found in various academic databases on the internet, although most of those require a paid subscription to get access. As the author, and still possessing some of the articles in their original books or journals or in reprints created from the same plates at the time the originals were printed, I am pleased to be able to make many of my articles easily available. Ain't technology wonderful? Enjoy!

For further biographical information, see: "Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D. Who is Ken Conklin? What does he look like and sound like? What is his background? What does he believe in? Why did he come to Hawaii? Why does he pick on ethnic Hawaiians?"
http://www.angelfire.com/bigfiles90/ConklinBio.html

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B. LIST OF 43 SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS FROM 1966 THROUGH 1985 WITH LINK TO A WEBPAGE WHERE 32 OF THEM ARE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD

Here's a link to a webpage where 32 of the items listed below can be downloaded either in pdf format, or in simple text, or both:

** 6 "The Rigor of the Connection Between Philosophy and Education," read at national convention of Philosophy of Education Society, Denver, April 1969. Published in PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 1969: PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
SOCIETY, ed. Donald Arnstine. Edwardsville, Ill.: Studies in Philosophy and Education, 1969, pp. 127-131.

7 "How We Can Help Society: By Doing Our Own Job Better," read at the
same national convention as item 6, published in the same proceedings, pp. 15-21.

12. "The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Wholes and Parts as Applied to
Philosophy of Education," read to the annual meeting of the Southeast Regional Philosophy of Education Society in Athens, Georgia, February 5, 1971. No proceedings, but item 24 is related.

** 15. "The Concomitance of Fact-Value, Emotion-Cognition, and Goal-Action", read to annual national convention of Philosophy of Education Society, Dallas, April, 1971. Published in PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 1971: PROCEEDINGS OF THE TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION SOCIETY, ed. Robert D. Heslep. Edwardsville, Ill.: Studies in
Philosophy and Education, 1971, pp. 254-263.

C. DESCRIPTIONS OF MY WORK AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR AND HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER FROM 1962 THROUGH 1992. These descriptions were written for a resume produced in 1992 in anticipation of retiring, moving to Hawaii, and perhaps seeking a university teaching position.

OAKLAND UNIVERSITY (Branch of Michigan State): 3 years as Assistant Professor, August 1967 to May 1970.

Undergraduate courses in philosophic and social foundations of education, educational psychology, freshman composition, new math for elementary teachers. Class size from seminars of 12 to lectures of 350. I single-handedly taught a semester-long "Philosophic and Social Foundations" course to 350 students meeting three times per week, with the aid of two paper-graders. I also used paper-graders in the "new math" course with 80 students.

Graduate courses in Philosophy of Education, and in History of Educational Ideas. Supervised an M.A.T. dissertation in Mathematics.

EMORY UNIVERSITY, Atlanta Georgia: 2 years as Assistant Professor, August 1970 to August 1972.

Undergraduate courses in introduction to education, philosophy of education, great ideas, interdisciplinary analysis of issues. By student invitation I served as facilitator for a student-planned, credit course on "Structure and Consciousness: An Interdisciplinary Approach." I helped design and implement a new liberal arts major in educational studies for students who do not wish to become teachers. Served on university-wide selection committee for Phi Beta Kappa membership.

Graduate courses in philosophy of education, including among others a course especially for masters students in nursing and one especially for doctoral students in psychology. Served as chairman of a 15-credit interdisciplinary summer course for M.A.T. students completing their programs. Member of doctoral dissertation committees. Chairman of Educational Studies Interdisciplinary Colloquium.

BOSTON UNIVERSITY: 3 years as Associate Professor, September 1972 to June 1975.

Undergraduate field-based courses team-taught in educational philosophy, psychology, and curriculum theory; individually-taught courses in issues in grading, policy studies, and applied psychology of learning. Designed and implemented new major in educational studies for students who do not wish to be teachers. At request of the School for the Arts, developed and taught courses in educational philosophy and psychology custom-made for teachers of art, music, and theater.

Graduate courses in educational philosophy, interdisciplinary inquiry, education for self-realization, creativity, and doctoral research proseminar. Member of dissertation committees and advisor to masters and doctoral students. Helped develop new doctoral programs in educational theory construction, and in humanistic education. Consultant to Educational Research Laboratory.

Service and Consulting: One of five faculty selected by all-university faculty senate steering committee for 15-member commission to develop permanent conduct codes for students, faculty, and administrators. B.U. representative for 12-university pilot program on the teaching of peace-making, sponsored by the United Nations Association of Boston and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. Consulted on liberal arts curriculum reform ar Mars Hill College (North Carolina) Active in Phi Beta Kappa, and under its auspices organized a series of university-wide discussions on grade-inflation.

NORWOOD HIGH SCHOOL, Norwood Mass., Teacher of Mathematics and Computer Programming, 17 years, September 1975 to June 1992.

(In 1992) This school has about 900 students, grades 10-12. Their abilities range from learning-disabled to advanced-placement, and their home backgrounds range from welfare-recipient single-parent to married, moderately-wealthy corporate executives or small-business owners. There are some Blacks, Orientals, and Hispanics, although the great majority are of White European ancestry, with large groups whose parents or grandparents are Italian, Irish, Polish, Jewish, or Arabic. Most students are well-behaved, but there is a normal suburban level of alcoholism, drug abuse, and teenage pregnancy. The sports teams are often champions in their strong conference and occasionally state champions, while the band has been Division 1 state
champion during much of my employment and New England champion several times.

Initially I took the job because budgetary cutbacks and program changes had forced me to leave Boston University, and no senior-level college positions were available. However, I have obtained great personal and professional satisfaction and growth from this job, to the point where I am willing to make a career in education at this level as gladly as I would make a career at the college level.

I have taught Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Senior College Math (advanced Algebra and Trigonometry), and General Math (slow learners and reluctant learners). Because of my own background as an academically talented student and college professor, I decided that my greatest professional challenge would be to teach students of average ability, and I am pleased that I do very well with them.

Computer programming in the BASIC language on Wang and Commodore hardware was an important part of every college-track mathematics course; but this changed when full-year courses in computer programming were created. In the Spring and Fall of 1983 I took courses in computer programming in Pascal, and word processing. Since September 1984 I have taught many sections of a full-year course in computer science using Pascal with Commodore Superpets, and have also used computers as instructional devices in my non-computer math classes. I designed major homework projects in computer programming which allowed each student to create, for each project, a simple program to accomplish a specific task for which the student would receive a minimum passing grade, and then to improve that program through a series of stages where each successive stage would accomplish more advanced tasks and receive correspondingly higher grades. Thus each student could choose how hard to work according to how much time he had available, how much creativity he had, and what grade he hoped to achieve.

Besides teaching, I have served as Mathematics Department representative to the Advisory Committee on School Policy, and organized an after-school Philosophy Club. I served as chairman of the Philosophy of Education committee for the reaccreditation self-study, in addition to routine service on the Administrative Policies and English Department committees. I have been active in policy formation, curriculum development, textbook selection, and departmental test development, especially in the areas of basic skills, geometry, computer programming, and college-board preparation.

If I return to university-level work, my several years of high school experience will add both substance and credibility to my research, teaching, and administrative work in teacher education or general education. If I
remain as a teacher or administrator in the public schools, my background as a college teacher and scholar in educational philosophy will give me broad perspectives and analytical skills useful in advising students and colleagues and in formulating and defending policy choices.